Retrieved Products from Simulated Hyperspectral Observations of a Hurricane

Abstract:

This research uses GCM derived products, with 1 km spatial resolution and sampled every 10 minutes, over a moving area following the track of a severe Atlantic storm simulated by Bob Atlas and co-workers at NOAA AOML. Model products were aggregated over sounder footprints corresponding to 13 km in LEO, 2 km in LEO, and 5 km in GEO sampled every 72 minutes. We simulated radiances for instruments with AIRS-like spectral coverage, spectral resolution, and channel noise, using these aggregated products as the truth, and analyzed them using a slightly modified version of the operational AIRS Version-6 retrieval algorithm. Spatial coverage and accuracy of retrievals as compared to model truth averaged over the appropriate footprint sizes are shown for all three sounding scenarios. Retrieval accuracies of all experiments, as compared to model truth averaged over the appropriate spatial resolution of the instruments, were similar to each other, and indeed were similar to what is typically obtained using observed AIRS data. Much more significantly, however, was that both the spatial structure and spatial coverage of Quality Controlled retrievals improved dramatically with increase in spatial resolution, first from 13 km to 5 km, and even more so from 5 km to 2 km. This demonstrates the desirability of flying high spatial resolution AIRS-like sounders on future LEO and GEO satellite missions.